Neil Patel and digital marketing company Neil Patel Digital are household names in the digital marketing industry. 

NP Digital is a full-service marketing agency that offers various digital marketing services, including search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, social media marketing, email marketing, and content marketing.

Frankly, if you can name a digital marketing service, they offer it. Their team consists of experienced digital marketing professionals who share the common goal of helping businesses grow and increase their online visibility, traffic, and revenue.

To be honest, the general sentiment about the agency in the marketing world is quite controversial. But at the same time, they have worked with many clients, from small startups to Fortune 500 companies, and have a proven track record of success in the industry.

But from our experience, we don’t believe you should hire Neil Patel Digital for lead generation and appointment setting service, and we will tell you why. In fact, it’s why we decided to create this post. 

On top of that, we will also share 7 lead generation agencies you need to consider for your goals, including our lead generation agency, Nerdy Joe. We specialize in delivering tangible results to our clients at a better value for money. 

From our prospecting to running the campaigns, we keep everything unique and customized for your needs. So, let’s start by discussing why NP Digital is not your best fit for lead generation and appointment setting needs. 

NP Digital’s range of services and why they are NOT the best fit for your lead generation needs

This is a bold statement for us to make. But we don’t believe you should hire NP Digital if your goal is to generate leads or book more sales appointments for your business, and here is why. 

It all goes from your goals with lead generation. We believe if you are hiring for lead generation or appointment setting services, it means that your business:

• Is not growing at the rate you want, and you want a dedicated team that can do outreach and help you generate leads fast. 
• Is struggling to establish a reliable approach to continuously attract and acquire leads and customers. So, you need a team to help achieve that. 
• Is tight on funds and can’t afford long-term marketing investments. So, you want ROI-driven strategies and get results without waiting months or burning a hole in your bank account. 

However accurately this paints your current situation, when you are seeking an agency to generate leads for you, in most cases, the immediate implication is that you want qualified leads, want it fast, and on a budget.

That said, let’s look at what services NP Digital offers and why they don’t fit your needs. 

Reason 1: Services not adapted to the needs of lead generation and appointment setting

Here is a snapshot of the services Neil Patel Digital offers. 

For the sake of being reasonable and thorough, let’s eliminate the services involving tools and tech as well as data and analytics since we care about the workflow they unfold to generate leads for you and how it impacts the results you get. 

So, that leaves us with Earned Media and Paid Media. 

Earned Media

Earned Media is just a fancy term that means inbound marketing. All you have to do is look at the services involved, and you can see what we mean. And it’s because the services rely on inbound marketing strategies that we don’t believe that it fits your lead generation needs. 

Let’s take a few, for example, to make the case for our hypothesis. The idea is that most of the services are not right for your need to generate leads and revenue fast and on a low budget. Let’s explain why it is so. 

• SEO and Content Marketing require significant investments in educational marketing materials and a considerable amount of time to generate significant results (more traffic, site audit, conversion optimization, turn ice cold prospects in new clients, etc.), which may not be feasible for you at the moment. Plus, there are hidden fees we can’t think about on the spot.
• Even if they guarantee a great team and a simple process, Email Marketing presupposes the need for an existing email list before any work can commence, with the focus being more on coding and sending emails rather than creating compelling email copies and executing effective campaigns.
• Organic Social Media, Digital PR, and Influencer Marketing are still inbound because they don’t involve any outreach. But rather creating and publishing content on your social media accounts or other places online and crossing your fingers for engagement. 

Now, like we said. 

We believe that when searching for a lead generation or appointment-setting service provider, it is essential to find one that takes a proactive approach by reaching out to potential customers and delivering measurable results. 

This means building an ideal customer profile list based on individuals with pain points that your product or service can solve and then engaging them with personalized messages through social media outreach, cold email, or cold calls. 

The goal is to identify those genuinely interested in your product or service and either bring them closer to your company or schedule a meeting with them.

That’s why most lead gen service providers adopt an outbound lead generation strategy, where they build a list, create customized messages, and reach out to potential customers, rather than waiting for leads to come to them. 

However, Neil Patel Digital primarily offers inbound marketing, where you create marketing materials and advertise them, hoping for interested individuals to click. And that’s why Np Digital may not be a suitable choice for you.

Paid Media

Paid Media can be summed up to acquiring leads through paid advertising methods like PPC, display ads, social media ads, and the likes. 

We do agree that paid media can help you generate leads and set appointments with qualified prospects for your business. The main issue here is that it is not always the best option for every business, even more so if you are a small business that wants to grow fast and has a low budget. 

Here are the reasons we don’t believe NP Digital’s Paid Media is not a fit for your business’ lead generation needs. 

• It will come out expensive: Paid advertising can be expensive and thus not sustainable for smaller businesses. The cost of advertising can quickly add up, and if you’re not seeing a return on your investment, it can be hard to justify the expense or any results to show for it.
• Low-quality leads: Paid advertising can attract a large number of leads, but not all of them will be high-quality. Some people click on ads out of curiosity, without any intention of buying your services. This can result in a lot of wasted time and money as you pay per click and try to follow up with leads who are not truly interested in your services.
• Limited reach: Paid advertising is limited to people actively searching for your services or products. I mean, if people don’t google it, your ads won’t pop up. This means that you may miss out on potential leads who are not actively looking for your services but are interested in them if they were presented with the right information through outreach, for example.
• Lack of trust: Paid advertising can come across as less trustworthy than other forms of marketing. People are often wary of ads, and they are more likely to trust recommendations from friends, family, or other trusted sources.

Reason 2: Highly-priced services tailored to high-profile, $100milion ARR brands 

NP Digital offers no specific pricing figures on their website. So, we can’t tell you to the very dollar how much you’ll have to pay them for their service. We can paint a picture and let you know how this may impact your business. 

First, the company provides customized pricing for each client based on their unique needs and goals, which is cool. 

However, it’s worth noting that their services are geared towards larger corporations with an annual revenue of over $100 million, so the prices “probably” reflect that.

Still, they offer flexible payment plans, with the option to pay monthly or yearly through a retainer contract. They only work with clients who are committed to a minimum one-year contract.

The issue with retainer contracts is that you may be able to scale down based on your situational needs. As well, you’ll have to pay them, whether you’re satisfied or not with what they offer you.  

This is because they mainly rely on long-term marketing strategies that they believe will yield results well into the future, which is not ideal for your current need to acquire leads and set appointments to grow your revenue. 

So, the pricing will probably be out of the league of the average businesses, and they are not specific as to how many leads you will get or the number of appointments they will set up for you. 

In other words, you’ll have to invest and sit back without being clear on what you get for your $$$. 

Why Nerdy Joe is your best alternative to Neil Patel Digital for lead generation and appointment services

We specialize in B2B marketing services with outbound lead generation through cold emailing. 

NP Digital’s main goal is to help you grow your online visibility and increase your revenue. Ours is to assist you in connecting with potential customers, generating sales-qualified leads, and scheduling appointments. 

We understand small and large enterprises’ challenges in improving their sales activities. One of the major hurdles is developing a reliable process for active lead generation and customer acquisition. 

This challenge can be overwhelming for sales teams, often causing them to become less productive. They face an even more significant challenge as their salespeople are typically responsible for prospecting, researching, and reaching out to potential customers. 

These tasks consume a considerable amount of their time, leaving them only 12% of their time for making calls and closing deals. We take over the lead generation responsibility, allowing salespeople more time to focus on their core strengths, such as in-person selling and closing deals.

Here is why you should consider us over Neil Patel Digital when it comes to lead generation and appointment setting service. 

Our lead gen approach is highly targeted and proactive, with personalized outreach through cold emails and direct messages. 

We designed our lead generation strategy to help you reach your ideal customers directly. We use an outbound outreach approach where we target specific companies or individuals that fit your customer profile while customizing the approach to their needs and personalizing the email.

In contrast, inbound marketing strategies like those used by NP Digital typically target a more general audience. It’s basically creating content, publishing it, and leaving it up to the most interested individuals to come to you. 

While this approach can effectively generate leads, it’s challenging to get specific about who you’re targeting. 

This lack of specificity makes it challenging to personalize your outreach efforts and address the unique needs of individual prospects, resulting in low-quality leads that require significant educational efforts to convert into customers.

We believe the best way to generate high-quality leads is through an outbound strategy that focuses on researching and identifying your ideal customer profile. 

So, we begin by building a shortlist of potential prospects based on your ICP, enabling us to reach out to them directly with a personalized message that speaks to their specific needs.

Our approach allows you to connect with your potential customers on a more personal level. 

By addressing their specific pain points and providing solutions tailored to their unique needs, we can generate high-quality, sales-ready leads, filling your sales pipeline with the best possible prospects and accelerating your growth.

Let’s detail this. 

We start with in-depth research to identify your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and build short lists of prospects that align with your specific criteria.

We are not generalists. We won’t scrape a list and start shooting out mass cold emails at random people we know nothing about. We are very specific in who we target for you. And for it to yield results, the most significant part of the work is to spend time manually researching your ICP and building a list. 

Our ideal scenario is sending 20 cold emails, getting 15 replies, 10 positives, and getting you 6 sales-qualified leads, meetings, or sign-ups.

So, when you sign up with us, we ask you meaningful questions that tell us exactly who your customers should be. Here are some of the questions we ask:

• Why did you start your company? 
• What pain points were you trying to solve?
• What are the top 3 objections you hear from prospective clients during sales calls?
• Which type of clients have the highest lifetime value?
• Which type of clients is easiest to close?
• Which type of clients churns the fastest?
• Etc.

Your answers to the questions we ask to provide us with all the information we need to build a profile of who we should target and why. Next, we spend time learning about each prospect we will target individually and finding out about their needs (coming up next). 

Here is how specific this allows us to get:

“Our ICP is a doctor at a healthcare company selling CBD-based oil for pain management, and his main pain points are lack of continuous product delivery and product stock management. He often refers to XYZ podcasts to get insights as to how to apply products efficiently.” 

Now, the next step is to create highly-personalized emails, and here is how we do it. 

We take the time to create individually personalized emails and messages that speak directly to the unique needs of each potential customer.

At Nerdy Joe, we believe the key to effective outbound lead generation lies in creating personalized cold emails and messages that resonate with each individual prospect. 

That’s why we take the time to research each prospect individually, gathering data points and insights that allow us to create highly targeted and customized outreach efforts.

Our goal is to make each recipient feel like you know them personally and understand their unique needs and preferences. By doing so, we can establish a meaningful connection that sets your brand apart from the competition and increases the likelihood that they will take you seriously and engage with your offer.

Even if a prospect doesn’t ultimately sign up for your offer, we aim to generate a positive response that leaves a lasting impression. 

To achieve this level of personalization, we create unique, separate emails for each prospect on your shortlist — rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all template. 

By tailoring each message to the recipient’s specific needs, pain points, and interests, we can maximize the impact of our outreach efforts and generate more high-quality leads for your business.

To achieve this, here is how we proceed to learn about each individual. 

• We listen to podcasts they have been on.
• We read the blog posts they wrote. 
• We read their LinkedIn, Twitter, and Mastodon posts.
• We read discussions on forums they’re in.

Doing so allows us to customize the message for each prospective lead based on the information we’ve gathered about their company or specific needs. 

This personalized approach increases the likelihood of success, as it shows that we have taken the time to understand their unique situation and are offering a tailored solution.

We offer a proactive approach with direct communication with potential leads, achieving faster results rather than waiting for them to come to us.

As previously mentioned, most of Neil Patel Digital’s lead generation strategies are focused on long-term inbound marketing, which may not be suitable for companies looking for fast results without significant investment. 

For instance:

• PPC campaigns can take 3 to 9 months to yield substantial results, which may not be feasible for companies with limited budgets. 
• Similarly, SEO and content marketing require significant time and investment to generate results.
• Email marketing typically requires an existing email list, and the service is more focused on sending emails, and educating subscribers than generating leads. 

From our experience, companies that hire for lead generation or appointment-setting services are looking for a steady stream of qualified leads to help them grow quickly.

At Nerdy Joe, we take a targeted approach and reach out directly to prospects, generating leads more quickly and moving them through the sales funnel at a faster pace. 

We optimize everything, including personalized emails and messages, to provide the best outcome for your business. By working with us, you can expect to see results from the first month without having to wait for months or have a huge budget for investments.

Our approach allows you to adjust the number of leads you receive based on your current capacity and needs, ensuring you have the right amount of leads to manage and nurture effectively.

Our outbound lead generation strategy allows for greater flexibility in adjusting outreach efforts to generate a specific volume of leads. This can be beneficial if you have specific sales goals or limited resources. 

For instance, if you are a small business, you may prefer a smaller volume of leads that are more likely to convert because you don’t have a lot of salespeople. In comparison, larger businesses may want to generate a larger volume of leads to maximize sales opportunities.

NP Digital’s primary focus on inbound marketing implies attracting leads rather than reaching out to them directly. This approach can be less predictable in terms of lead volume, and there is a risk of overwhelming your sales team with more leads than they can handle. 

With our outbound lead generation strategy, you have more control over lead volume, ensuring you receive the appropriate amount of leads to manage and convert effectively.

We pride ourselves on offering a better ROI for our clients with our flat rate pricing model and clear outcomes. 

Our cold email lead generation strategy offers a more cost-effective and faster solution compared to NP Digital’s content marketing, SEO, PPC, and social media marketing — long-term games with significant investments.

Also, unlike NP Digital, we don’t require any initial investments or a year-long retainer contract. We charge you based on the results we bring to your business, not on the amount of work or number of people we reach out to. 

This means you know exactly what to expect from our service upfront, and we have a refund policy in place. This approach guarantees a better ROI and offers transparent, flat-rate pricing with detailed expectations, ensuring you get the results you need to grow your business.

Here is what our pricing looks like.

• Silver: It costs $499/month and only gives you two warm LEADS.
• Gold: This is the plan we recommend, as it gives you the biggest bang for your buck. It costs $999/month and gives you 6 hot and sales-qualified appointments or LEADS.
• Platinum: This plan is for mid-level to enterprise companies willing to fuel their sales team with up to 15 sales-ready leads on a monthly basis.

What’s interesting with us is that you know the results you’re getting upfront and know exactly how much you’ll have to pay for it. 

6 NP Digital alternatives and competitors for lead generation and appointment setting

1. WebFx

WebFx is a full-scale digital marketing agency. They offer both outbound and inbound marketing services. They are an excellent alternative to NP Digital’s services, and here is a breakdown of their services. 

• Service range:  Just like NP Digital, WebFx uses SEO, PPC, content marketing, Email Marketing, and ABM marketing to generate leads for businesses of all sizes — from small to enterprise level.
  While they offer lead generation and appointment setting as part of their services, it is not their primary focus — pretty much like Neil Patel Digital.
• Key features: WebFx boasts a team of digital marketing and sales experts who work with you to develop a customized strategy based on your unique needs.
  WebFx also has custom lead generation, marketing, and outreach tools that can boost your lead generation campaign — same as NP Digital. 
• Pricing: When it comes to pricing for email marketing services (whether it’s lead generation or contact management) from WebFX, you’ll pay between $300-$5000 per month or $0.1-$0.05 per recipient, which is high for the average business.
  We can also say NP Digital also works primarily with high-ticket businesses. Also, you will have to make an initial investment of $900 with WebFx, and they also offer custom pricing for larger projects.

2. Belkins.io

Belkins.io is a lead generation and appointment-setting service company and an excellent alternative to NP Digital. 

• Service range: The primary difference between NP Digital and Belkins.io is that the first focuses on online marketing and brand visibility, while the latter focuses on ROI-focused lead acquisition.
  Also, NP Digital’s services are mainly inbound marketing and display ads; Belkins.io uses data sources like Google, LinkedIn, Crunchbase, Glassodor, Xing, and others to generate leads.
• Key features: Belkins also offers multiple outreach channels, including cold email, cold calling, and social media outreach. They hand-curate thousands of prospects from data intelligence tools. 
• Pricing: Belkins.io also offers custom pricing but based on the project’s scope and complexity.

3. KlientBoost

KlientBoost is a full-service digital marketing agency that helps businesses of all sizes increase their online presence and drive revenue growth. 

• Service range: Along with NP Digital, KlientBoost offers many services, including PPC advertising, conversion rate optimization, landing page design, lead generation, and more.
  One of the company’s most popular services is email marketing, helping businesses generate leads and more revenue through targeted email campaigns — which is what brought them to this list.
  They conduct thorough research and design effective campaigns to bring prospects closer to their clients’ businesses. From creating emails to conducting A/B testing, Klientboost manages all aspects of your email marketing services. 
• Key features: KlientBoost offers businesses a team of experienced digital marketers who offer them a DFY lead gen approach.
  One of their standout features is their advanced analytics tools. Thanks to these, the company is able to provide its clients with detailed insights into their online marketing campaigns, allowing them to make informed decisions that drive results.
• Pricing: To learn about their pricing, clients can use Klientboost’s ROI calculator to get an estimate based on their specific needs.

4. CallBox

CallBox also fits right in the shoes of NP Digital’s alternatives for lead generation and appointment setting service. 

• Service range: CallBox’s primary focus is to help you generate more leads and sales without suffering through the process involved. Their services include outbound telemarketing, lead nurturing, lead scoring, appointment setting, and event marketing.
• Key features: Their main outreach channels consist of cold emailing and cold calling. They use a combination of manual research and technology to build targeted prospect lists they use for campaigns. They also offer database profiling services to help businesses improve their targeting.
• Pricing: Callbox leaves no pricing information to be found on their website. You can only reach out to them and get customized pricing.
  But a review article on the Martal Group website indicates that a few Callbox clients paid anywhere from $4,300 – $5,300 a month, with some larger projects costing as much as $15,000 monthly.

5. Mayple

Mayple is a digital marketing platform that provides services across various industries, including e-commerce, healthcare, technology, travel, and more. Here is why you should consider them as an alternative to NP Digital.

• Service range: Just like NP Digital, Mayple offers various inbound marketing services and paid media, such as SEO optimization, social media management, PPC advertising, email marketing, content creation, and more.
• Key features: Mayple has a network of pre-vetted marketing experts with experience in various industries. These experts are carefully selected based on their skills, expertise, and experience.
  You’ll also get a set of project management tools that help you and marketing experts collaborate effectively. You can track the progress of your marketing campaigns and communicate with their marketing experts effectively.

Mayple also offers multilingual support, which means businesses can communicate with their marketing experts in their preferred language.

• Pricing: Mayple does not require you to sign any long-term contract. Clients can start and stop their marketing campaigns at any time, depending on their needs and budget.
  Mayple does not disclose its pricing publicly. They offer flexible pricing plans that vary based on the scope and complexity of the marketing services needed. You get two main pricing plans: performance-based and monthly retainer plans.

6. Martal Group

The Martal Group is a B2B lead generation company that focuses on generating leads for tech companies in the IT, SaaS, and telecom industries. Here is how they compare to Neil Patel Digital’s service. 

• Service range: Martal Group offers services, including lead research, lead qualification, appointment setting, and lead nurturing. They combine LinkedIn lead generation, Email, and Phone for outreach.
  They use a combination of technology and human expertise to identify and engage with potential customers on behalf of their clients.
• Key features: They have a data intelligence platform with a curated database of 100 million contacts. The Martal Group provides their clients weekly customized lists of pre-qualified leads and marketing campaigns.
• Pricing plans: The Martal Group offers a flat monthly fee after the 3-month Pilot Campaign, and businesses need to speak to the sales team to get a quote. 

Let Nerdy Joe do appointment setting and lead generation for your business

There you have it. 

If growing your business through online marketing, SEO, Digital PR, Content Marketing, Email Marketing, or PPC is what you care about, then we recommend working with WebFx, KlientBoost, or Mayple. 

But if you care about getting leads, booking more appointments without suffering through lead generation, and freeing up your sales team to have more meetings and close deals, then you’re in luck. 

Our outbound lead generation agency, Nerdy Joe:

• uses a proactive approach and does wait for people to come to you,
• is specific in who they target,
• takes a more personalized approach, 
• doesn’t buy or scrap lists, 
• asks you meaningful questions to build a representative picture of the ideal customer profile and uses a unique targeting approach,
• gets you happy customers.

We believe heavily in research prospects and creating email copies that make an impact. 

We take the time to understand your business’s ideal customer and tailor our approach to each individual. And we are able to generate high-quality leads that are more likely to convert into sales. 

So, if you’re looking for a personalized and effective lead generation and appointment-setting service, Nerdy Joe is the best alternative to WebFx. 

Our approach to targeting is more accurate, and our focus on quality over quantity ensures that you get the most out of your investment.